don't goodbyes get old
by ketsole
Summary: Jade West has never been one for friendship but these 5 people just can't seem to let her go.


**1.**

_Caterina Valentine_

The name is written in sparkly pink pen, big loopy letters taking up three lines on the sign-up sheet.

Jade rolls her eyes and writes down her own name in chicken scratch.

*:･ﾟ

_Caterina Valentine _turns out to be a tiny little thing with huge brown eyes and possibly the widest smile Jade has ever seen. She's always wearing sparkly nail polish and hot pink converse and pastel-colored dresses and millions of bracelets on her wrists and purple bands on her braces that are somehow always on display because that smile seems to be permanent.

On the day of auditions, she sits next to Jade in the bleachers of the gym and introduces herself as _Cat_ Valentine and does not _stop_ talking.

"Who are you auditioning for?" Cat asks, so genuinely interested it takes Jade back.

"Eric," Jade says seriously.

Cat blinks twice, smiles (it makes jade dig her nails into her palms), and says nothing.

"Of course I'm not auditioning for fucking _Eric_. I'm auditioning for Ariel."

"Oh. Me too! Do you like singing? Ariel isn't my favorite musical, but I kinda love any musical so-"

"Look, _Cat_, we're seventh graders." Jade lets her head fall back. "The lead roles always go to the eighth graders. We aren't getting shit."

Cat shuts up after that, but Jade can still hear her happily humming _Under the Sea_.

*:･ﾟ

Surprise rumbles through their middle school when Cat gets the part of Ariel (jade isn't that surprised because cat _actually_ has pipes) Jade gets Ursula, and another 7th grader gets Eric.

"I have to wear a wig," Cat tells her dejectedly after their first costume fitting.

"Lame," Jade says.

For a second, Cat looks insulted, eyes beginning to water.

(it's typical, cat's crying, jade will learn this soon enough)

Jade grabs one of her braids and wiggles it. "Let's dye your hair."

*:･ﾟ

As soon as the bell rings, Jade's already dragging Cat out of biology and to the bike rack outside.

"Do you live North or South of 3rd Street?"

"North, but I-"

"C'mon, don't be a baby. Remember what you told me last week? Your parents don't pay attention to you." Jade's already getting on her bike. "They won't notice if you're gone for a few hours."

Cat isn't really one to argue so she unlocks her own bike and follows Jade as she pedals down the street.

*:･ﾟ

After Jade very efficiently steals box dye and some black nail polish from a Rite Aid, they go to her house where her parents will be too busy (yelling at each other) to care about whatever she and Cat are doing.

"Jade, we live so close! I live, like, two blocks over!" Cat squeals when they reach her street.

"_Oh, god_." Jade mutters under her breath.

(it's the start of all her free time never being spent at home)

*:･ﾟ

"If this were real life you wouldn't try and kill me like Ursula, would you?" Cat asks, voice muffled by the flow of the tap.

"No." Jade stops rinsing the dye out and mulls it over. "No, not yet, anyway."

"Why are you doing this?" Cat's voice comes back serious and it catches Jade off-guard.

"Because," Jade huffs. "You sing nice."

"_Aw_, Jade-"

"And the wig makes you look ugly."

*:･ﾟ

After the play is over, Jade has no plans to continue talking to Cat, but the other girl is like a puppy. (kick it and it'll come right back, sound familiar?)

"We _aren't_ friends," Jade repeats for the fifth time as Cat sits next to her in the cafeteria.

"But you stole hair dye for me-" Cat protests.

"No one's done that for you before?"

Jade _knows_ they aren't friends, but her smirk says otherwise.

**2.**

Jade West is that 8th grader who is unapologetically mean to almost everyone, it's a well-known fact.

She stars in almost every school play and writes strange things on the bathroom stalls and dresses weird enough to look cool and glares at every teacher and can sing really well and won't be friends with you even if you try and if you say something to her be careful because she's all bark _and_ bite unless-

_Unless_ you're Cat Valentine, consider yourself fucking warned.

**3.**

Family fucking sucks.

Cat's family? They're a mess. Jade's family? Also a goddamn mess.

"That's the skank that my Dad's cheating on my mom with." Jade points out one day. They're at the mall, shoulder to shoulder, picking through dresses and skirts and jeans and tube tops and spying on Jade's dad through the window display.

"Maybe she doesn't know he has a family." Cat supplies, turning around when she notices Jade's gone quiet.

"My mom's pregnant." Jade deadpans.

"Oh, _fuck_-"

It's the first and last time Jade hears Cat swear.

*:･ﾟ

Eighth grade kind of kills them both.

There's a winter formal that neither of them are particularly inclined to go to, but they decide getting ready could be fun (jade gets a bottle of jack from her parent's liquor cabinet and oh it's just _too easy_) and it's not like they don't already spend every Friday afternoon together.

Jade's leaning into the mirror doing her eyeliner and Cat's trying to change the band-aid on her finger.

"What'd you do anyway?" Jade watches as the blood drips from the cut on Cat's index finger down to the white tile.

"I was making myself dinner. Trying to anyway," Cat bites her lip and decides another shot would be good.

"What if you'd needed stitches?" Jade asks.

"Probably woulda called you. My parents always have to deal with my trainwreck brother." Cat stumbles over her words, (maybe it's the whiskey maybe it's all these _feelings_) and tries to put another band-aid on with shaking hands.

Jade puts the eyeliner down and takes the band-aid from Cat so she can put it on right. "You're stupid." She whispers, pressing the edges of bright pink Hello Kitty down onto her skin.

Then: "What would you do without me?" Jade laughs easily because it's meant to be a joke and she's a little tipsy, but when Cat tries to smile she just ends up crying, so Jade holds her tight and says nothing because that's what _friends_ (the word doesn't taste so bitter anymore) are for.

In the end they decide to ditch their own dance and instead go to Sherwood High's, where the kids are older and cooler and better looking and no one recognizes the angry set of Jade's eyes or cares enough to notice the mascara tears have dried on Cat's face and every drop of punch is so obviously spiked.

*:･ﾟ

Jade's parents never seem to stop fighting and she thinks it starts rubbing off on her when A) all she wants to do is throw things, B) punch people and C) feel nothing.

"_Christ_ Cat, you're so annoying," Jade shouts on their way to school. "Don't you have any other friends to go fucking bother?"

"Don't you?" Cat's eyes don't even go watery as she stops walking.

Jade's confused for a second but then she gets it. _You don't have a lot of friends either. _It's kind of painfully true. She can count on one hand the people she'd willingly spend more than ten minutes with.

"Whatever." Jade mumbles. "Let's go shopping later, I need a new skirt."

Cat catches up to her on the sidewalk and links her arm through hers and says nothing and Jade thinks that maybe, just _maybe_, Cat understands her better than anyone else.

**4\. **

Some nights Jade will climb through Cat's window into her room and they'll spend the whole night watching Gossip Girl or talking about Kelly Ling's new haircut and _did you hear_ _Mikey and Ella broke up_ or they'll copy each other's geometry homework or do Broadway karaoke or sneak out to go watch the new Twilight movie just so they can make fun of it-

One day Jade shows up with two wrinkled pieces of paper in her hand and two envelopes in the other.

They read _Hollywood Arts Highschool_ and something about auditions and singing and dancing and acting and _this is what we've been dreaming about for years Cat can't you feel it?_

Their auditions are the day after they graduate from middle school. Cat sings something from West Side Story and Jade performs a monologue from a play she wrote herself and after they're done they bike to the Dairy Queen on San Jose Avenue and get Blizzards and feel ridiculously giddy with the promise of something new.

They both get in, to absolutely no one's surprise except their own.

*:･ﾟ

"Are you scared?" Jade asks.

They're laying on her roof, watching the 4th of July fireworks scatter through the night sky.

"Maybe." Cat laughs, and she doesn't need to ask to know that Jade's talking about Hollywood Arts and the idea of growing up.

In Cat-Speak, that means _no, i'm not scared, i'm never scared, don't you get it-_

"Me neither." Jade huffs.

In Jade-Speak, that means _i'm fucking terrified, jesus _fuck _hahaahhah-_

*:･ﾟ

On Jade's first day at Hollywood Arts, she isn't alone.

She has Cat Valentine.

Cat is ditzy and always loses her train of thought and is kind of clingy and as much as Jade likes to pretend they don't know each other, they've been friends since middle school.

Their first day of freshman year, they walk to school together, arms linked like a chain. (another one of the things Jade pretends to hate, along with Cat's baffling loyalty) Before they walk into the building, they check each other's lip gloss and outfits and hair and instead of admitting they're scared, Cat giggles and Jade scowls.

Jade never vocalizes it but there's no one else in the world that she'd rather be (best) friends with.

* * *

**im going to try and update this weekly. as always, ketsole on ao3**


End file.
